Play Seminar

  Play  

  • a critical component to a child's development and education  

  • changes through the child's development  

  •  categorized by age  

  • considered by theorists in terms of developmental domains, for example language  

  • Some say it’s a medium for leaning, others say it’s a condition for learning 

  • Intrinsically motivated 

  • Dynamic 

 

Research = what happens before and after play, what type of play (Fromberg), also said play is important because it mirrors real life experiences, becomes more complex, becomes more verbal and less prop reliant 

 

Primary, secondary and Tertiary Circular Reactions 

  • Primary reactions = action and response, both involve infants own body, example – baby sucks their thumb and enjoys sucking their thumb (1-4 months) 

  • Secondary reactions = gets a response from a person or object, leads the baby to repeat the action, example – baby coos and sees smiling face (4 – 8 moths ) 

  • Tertiary reactions = bay gets one pleasing result from an action, leads baby to try a similar action to get similar result, example – baby steps on duck and it quacks, picks up duck to squeeze it with hands, also quacks (12-18 months) 

 

Types in infant play 

  • Object play = focused on the body as infants repeat motor skills , primary and secondary circular reactions according to Piaget (shifts to other people and objects at 4 months), 19 months real versus symbolic, 2- 3 tertiary circular still object centered but experimental, 3-4 manipulation like puzzles and painting (more goal focused than exploratory) 

  • Motor play = when infants develop motor skills, 9-12 months has a lot of motor play, pulling up/cruising/standing and walking happening earlier as children can take risks in a safe environment (Fromberg and Bergen 2015), 1 year children like marking things with crayons but can only scribble and mark, 3 year children can color more accurately and use play dough (just manipulate not create) 

  • Social play = first few months adults engage in social play with child - like cooing or peekaboo, 12 months reciprocal games and point and name games take place, adults are critical (Zone of proximal development, scaffolding), when infants begin to recognize infants they become excited when introduced, young toddler object centered and reciprocal social interactions like chasing, 15-36 months social pretend play 

  • Pretend play = 1 year more individual then social like brushing teeth and phone calls, 12 moths they pretend towards peers, 3-4 years act with figures and dolls which is closely linked to language development  

  • Other types of play = construction play helps logico-mathematical skills, link between lego construction ability and math skills mediated by visuospatial memory 

  • Other types of play - Executive functioning = link between pretend play in preschool and executive functioning in the first grade, pretend play also moderated the link between risk in preschool and EF outcomes in the first grade 

 

Research methods = RCT(experiemental), case study (descriptive), longitudinal study(experimental), naturalistic observation (descriptive) 

 

Naturalistic observation 

  • Provides more objective and detailed methods of a wide range of behaviours  

  • Less prone to bias  

  • Have higher ecological validity 

  • More info about the function of behaviour